This invention pertains to food-preparation bowl structure, such as food-mixing bowl structure, and to related methodology. In particular, it relates to such structure and methodology wherein heat may be applied during the preparation/mixing process for the purpose of heating, and even partially (or fully) cooking, food which is being mixed. Even more particularly, the invention focuses on this kind of bowl structure and methodology wherein inner and outer, nestable bowl units are included and employed which may be disconnectably joined to form a bowl-shaped void space between them wherein heated steam alone, during use of the bowl structure, is introduced under control to furnish extremely stable, uniform heat to the outside surface of the inner bowl unit, and through the heat-conductive wall of that inner unit to any contained mixable/mixed food.
For the purpose of illustration herein, a preferred and best-mode embodiment of, and manner of practicing, the invention are described in the setting of bowl structure of the type generally outlined above which is especially suited to function as a removable attachment to an otherwise conventional food mixer of the kind having a power-driven, orbital/rotary-implement-carrying mixing “head”.
In structural terms which significantly affect the unique methodology of the invention, while the bowl structure of the present invention offers a number of interesting and unique features, standing out among them is the fact that this structure, as a whole, effectively permits only controlled steam heating of a nested, inner bowl unit. This steam-heating-only feature and practice of the invention is accommodated, in the herein disclosed preferred embodiment, etc. of the invention, by the presence, adjacent the base of the outer bowl unit, of an upwardly facing, open-topped well which includes a controllable electrical heating unit, or element, and which is designed to hold a body of “to-steam-heatable” water in a location, and with a disposition, which keeps the upper reaches of this water away from direct contact with the inner bowl unit.
These and various other features and advantages of the invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description thereof which follows below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.